Listen!; Charles Davis, Ex-Priest: A Question Of Conscience

the plan there's a soapy isn't guess i have with me that was the chasse davis as a davis made a great deal of noise several years ago in england because he was formerly a priest and he's written a book about this situation and certainly something that's been bothering and it has been in the news in america and abroad of this question and has been questioning our priests and the book is called a question of conscience has just been pushed by harper and row i think before we get into our my little debate but this press mr dave to tell us about what prompted him to write the book what it does do in the first chapter that i think might be interesting here could i just couldn't chew on one small planes are going to be prevented but it is rather important that i left the roman catholic church in priesthood only last december not several years ago i want to stress that because the purpose of the

law is to try to get a count all the reasons why i left he doesn't represent to a development all of my position except in so far as writing a book is bound to develop one's reasons at that idea i haven't sat down any further research for the book i'm in denver and over the last time few months in which i'd been visiting data writing the ball it was finished in the middle of june which is barely six months after i left the church and i have to try to formulate to put down on paper and my state of mind in that leaving the church a boast to explain myself to myself i am a writer and to take possession of all of my reasons for letting the way that i knew best was to write them down but another reason i had in

writing the book was to help other people i was in england and also to some extent the magic of an american master by my writings thought had been over here giving lectures i have been in the position of all the mediating the new developments in the church to a great number of people who required some guidance priests nuns and eight people had they yet they looked to to me i want to give an interpretation of what was happening and to relate what was happening to the traditional faith that traditional catholic practice and that was abolished in which i was in for that reason my departure from the church was a shattering blow to many people and i wanted to try and help these people understand my position i particularly there to give them the positive side so that turkey affect my decision would not be simply to smash

what that had been build up in them but would be seen as a development of what i've been trying to do before mr davis when did these boys enter into my own as for the question is of course is a very difficult question to alms so that it show in the bull co in fact certain lines of thought had been developing in my mind over a number of years but some in a church which is the roman catholic church it is not possible to go on for an event of time debating whether or not to leave the church in a highly dogmatic chitchat like the roman catholic church when it was not until the very last oscar the ultimate question that the

one more to la from one's mind and that the result is that when the banks eventually break through they break through southern maine consequently the direct questioning of my position happened fairly quickly that lost all although the eye can see it as a logical outcome or what's been going on in my mind for years and particularly india and the last year or so i can look back now to some of the editorials i wrote in a magazine i edited the clergy view and see how those editorials are already stating the points i made in the book but converged on the conclusion that i should leave the church but the immediate decision that was forced by two things that happened in people to them all last year the first was the papal pronouncements or lack of a pronouncement rather the

papal statement to postpone any decision on birth control and did so by a lot i still regard as a dishonest untruthful statements and this attitude all the poe were all sit right out into my mind of her that lack of concern for people that i saw almost everywhere in the church it became a symbolic all that lack of credibility of the church as an embodiment of christian love and i can still remember the emotional as well as intellectual up people that papal state and calls it in may at the time now at that verdi period when this statement in the aftermath of that i wrote an editorial on it at the time in the clergy few of them moved by it but at that time

i was i had the task of preparing a paper for the roman catholic anglican meeting it was a meeting at the start of the first official he commanded who me meeting sponsored a top level rome on the one hand and can't agree on the of that and i have the task of writing the position paper to inaugurated discussion from the room and get excited that no particular topic was given to me it was a general paper and i had to work out in my mind the position paper for the roman catholics to begin the discussion at this meant that it had to go over it in my mind the roman catholic position the keys you're at your doctrine of the church of the roman catholics and i found that i simply didn't believe it i realize what would happen to my own mind from the experience of the council to what was going on in the church that when

i faced what in fact the official roman catholic faith was in regard to the church in regard to the paper say i have to say to myself bluntly honestly i do not believe this now it was those two points coming to get there and that in fact caused everything to come up in my mind i'd been prepared over a long period and that is why the decision to go place they quickly but it is looking back on it i don't find myself had any guilt feelings about making a hasty decision because as i look back on it i see it as the outcome of a long development but at the time would be the actual decision was made relatively quickly <unk> at what age did you enter the seminary i and to the senate the age all sixteen some harm question has been brought up about this that perhaps it might be to everyone's

better if a young men wait until the age of thirty and that this is a problem where many young people brought into the center at such an extraordinary young age that that sometimes it turns out to be that to their disadvantage they say by the time they reach thirty they realize that they have made a mistake yes i you we'll begin by saying that i had my i had no complaints person and a hat of the time did not sir paul was not able to enter freely into the priesthood it is possible that town and that a cycle analysts would see various unconscious motivation in my becoming a priest but looking back upon my time i did so with conscious freedom and

as far as selling out one can know with an understanding of what was evil and i was or dating i didn't take a decisive step until the at a job of twenty three i can still remember that i thought about it very considerable aid i think i had done scared understanding of possible of what was involved in the priesthood and incentive to say so i'm not a tall putting forward to cleave that i didn't say i wasn't able to act with reasonable freedom i say that as a as a precaution because i do feel bitter my own actions it is a question all faith i reached an intellectual conviction that the roman catholic church is no longer credible as a church of christ in a social structures no longer from incredible as an embodiment of christian faith hope and love and that is it's from that conviction that i'm acting

have not any sense at the height of being unable to act freely previous lame but i do agree with you that many young people have become priests with what they think at the time a reasonable freedom but afterwards they change so considerably that they should have an opportunity at all or drink the decision about their daily life particularly about that's about seven percent i think that one would make things better by having the age of thirty but even so i still think that people even after the age of thirty you do change at this i think you've won all via points all three modern understanding of men we realized that men do change and men are in the process of becoming an that so how have their deeply warm convince oneself at a certain age it is that possible the one change and

that it seems to me that there should be allowed for certain way so that people even older than that they will have sincerely committed themselves to a christian ministry and what the hat it's done an excellent work for christ in that ministry of surprising that ministry should never the less reach a reasonable decision that they no longer wish the service the minister that they feel that they can live as a christian better in some other way and in that sense if you recognize that the that call to ministry is something which can be a temporary call i mean one of the other points that they felt that this way it a young man or young woman or have experienced life a little yes i mean that is so that i don't think that it is in fact the real problem because sound of the mom one speaks of the experience of life then the idea

i think of this varies considerably with people you would lay people i mean i have certainly met many la people whose experience of life i should've said is very limited and munch now to where the map which chair i would be possessed of by a priest who went to the seminary at an early age and became a minister and as soon as the he reached via the minimum age for women astray i think it's too easy to talk about the experience of life in this way as if a particular state are not as if bin laden is going to give you experience a life experience of it is there's a question also of growing and becoming of people do so in a different ways no i think myself to just as you have older people who were at a certain age in life and that when i was in rome for my dignity i stayed at the beta college which is a college with a locations and there you have people all various

korea as doctors lawyers engineers people of some craft or not though the age of thirty forty fifty you decide to go onto the christian ministry and this is a reasonable choice they've chained day of reached a new understanding and i think that was the opposite should be recognized and that's not people at a given state wish to devote themselves to the ministry and they know that they may have wished to consecrate themselves as seven votes in order to carry out some christian nation by at going to some difficult situation but then and later and they added look upon themselves to have changed their understanding of life was altered and they are attracted to a different way all of living there where christian life i think the tears you must recognize that people change and that therefore you cannot in regard to anyone get whether it be the age of twenty for the ages thirty a lifelong decision that is regarded as absolute in

such a way that the person is not about change with reasonable dignity simply because he is now different purpose ms davis when you think about this resistance to change in rome that has been really the great problem we're very resistant to talk about this thing celibacy in the open and it has cerny come out in america that a large number of priests are leaving the order and are leaving either because of that a lot this question about the church where they feel they are not living in our time i think in this particular matter you have a manifestation of all of the generals that it in the roman catholic church which has won all fear of change and death i think that this is a jew as i argue in my bowl and one of the points of face to me and we got to

judging the roman catholic church was that you had this they see as his lack of all all the love that which made the church come to sign and yet this wasn't because catholics whether laypeople what the bishops or priests were evil people they were good people sincere people really trying to serve christ and his word or why then was there so much frustration in the chairs so much on happiness so much lack of love and my nemesis was that this was due to the fact that an obsolete social structure have been made absolute and when you get that the wrong social structure and establishes wrong relationship to create wrong attitude at least the wrong actions now i think the roman catholic church has made absolute a given structure of the church which in fact is obsolete which belongs to an earlier stage of man's social consciousness and which were

simply have to be broken up it would have to be a boy she would have to be done away with now the forces in his words on in fact working for the destruction of that social system and because of this the people in the church are afraid they've realize that the few facts that they have allow freedom than the present positions will have to be abandoned now this became clear that the ap accounts on it becomes clear on a whole series of issues that came from the birth control issue to campaign on the celibacy issue is not just a question of allowing celibacy because theoretically in the roman jeff as regards his ecclesiastical wish the pope would change the marquee wanted to know doctrinal point is evil the fight however is a change in celibacy would undoubtedly mean a change in the whole structure of the church is to allow that married clergy in the present set up in the chair at the whole concept of seminary training have the whole relationship all priests

bishops all this is going to be changed and so you have the changes that it was going to lead the momentous changes in regards to set the picture this or c and this is fear fear and becomes in fact fear not not confidence amount an openness to that they call a discussion of the magic on the basis of that mattered because fear and and anxiety the bajo present situation is going to collapse then the figures rise to suppression this was the reaction in the birth control issue and is precise is reaction the celibacy issue big role as opposed to change because it is shot through with fear rosie our average catholic except this might think that the attitude of the great number or gay catholics has won all the bewilderment it is a double game that they play where they'll send there's a double game i think actually that where with all sincerity that tends to be a double

game is in the catholics who are fully involved in the work of a mule and i'm hoping that my bow would lead to some video i'm a forthright discussion in that way i mean in a sense and they put this without being offensive russia but to call the bluff of some catholics who have committed themselves to work of the formal ring mule and are counting on from a point of view that doesn't accept the official line of the seas to be garbled bishops and popes have to say of any importance and yet consider that it's perfectly consistent for them to be roman catholics now i mean i respect their particular position but in view of the fact that they're so much fuss was made about my leading teacher she amassed by the point and i put the point out in the book of my own course of action is straightforward to an almost

naive extent i mean i left the jetliner longer exit the room and kept the faith i find however discussing with care rick's a great number of catholics remain in a working for the reform of the church even though they don't accept the official teaching and they're not prepared in fact to discuss the official teaching with someone like myself i've had remarks made me such is all we have and believe that figure is what you making a fuss about it or the trouble is that you used to call that serious dave that we haven't taken it seriously for a long time thought about the same the people want where lives a consistency the coherence of your position i'm prepared to respect it but you can't bulbs the issue you can't push aside well the church teachers are multiple dozen says pushing the sides of no importance and so from that point of view would be on i am i should i very much to her to argue with them the

roman catholics were fully engaged in the world forty form and asked them to explain to me the mountains all what seems to me to be an inconsistent position leon to the ordinary catholics those who have the makeup the average that congregation i think the time many of them are now what i mean and they no longer have to take the word of the church with the same our submission as they did before the thing the birth control issue in the favor of the church to present reasonable postrel guidance has effect it had a considerable effect upon the authority of the church over ordinary people they no longer take very serious way what the church says when it's something that they themselves that can judge from their own experience and reflection and many of them of course are bewildered what is taking

place particularly the people or found in the church a certain sense of security a community support which they don't find elsewhere and consequently a changing cheers doesn't provide that support in quite the same way and they are all the lost and that's why i do want to find out that many of these people as possible to help them by putting forward a positive vision on the chair shook so that when they eat i think increasingly the present structure of the church will be criticized and increasingly it will suffer a deterioration in a process of disintegration i want the show to be able to feel that not all is lost so there is a positive christian vision which then they can look forward to could this will also the reason why many are catholic intellectuals some

are venturing drip on the church i don't know about catholic intellectuals i should rather speak of cafe professional people intellectuals are more easily able to go their own way and to do write their nourishment us catholics from a variety of theological sources which makes their position tolerable at what happens i think with people who are intellectually but not catholic intellectuals in the sense of being writers on catholic seaman's or particularly involved in catholic matters but people like doctors lawyers and other professionals people who were high education and who are catholics is so was someone described filming in england and i think it's a true expression is set in a greater than thirty year that they they are immigrants from that the church in the sense that they

found in their view that they can all set happened the same kind of part in the life of the charges are having secular life and that they simply go along with the church and from the point of view of receiving the sacraments but they had nothing else to do with the chair they have kept religion in that sense in a compartment of them minorities the church in a compartment of their mind they remain catholics they go to church on sundays but they have found that any way to participate as at the people in the life of the church have been frustrated and so they have simply given up beaten and so there is set really in the church of the great untapped potential there is another tie to tie goes several of the things in this interesting book core question of conscience i think it's a book for catholics and non catholics is stimulating book medical fraud a lot of challenges to catholics and non catholics book is published by harper no i thank my guest sue davis